. "Don't do as I
did," she once told a pupil. "I wanted to sing everything, and I ruined
my voice."

Happy are the fiery natures which burn themselves out and glory in the
sword that wears away the scabbard.

CHAPTER XV

ORPHEE

We know, or, rather we used to know--for we are beginning to forget that
there is an admirable edition of Gluck's principal works. This edition
was due to the interest of an unusual woman, Mlle. Fanny Pelletan, who
devoted a part of her fortune to this real monument and to fulfill a
wish Berlioz expressed in one of his works. Mlle. Pelletan was an
unusually intelligent woman and an accomplished musician, but she needed
some one to help her in this large and formidable task. She was
unassuming and distrusted her own powers, so that she secured as a
collaborator a German musician, named Damcke, who had lived in Paris a
long time and who was highly esteemed. He gave her the moral support she
needed and some bad advice as well, which she felt obliged to follow.
This collaboration accounts for the change of the contralto parts to
counter-tenors. It also accounts for the fact that in every instance the
parts for the clarinets are indicated in C, in this way attributing to
the author a formal intention he never had. Gluck wrote the parts for
the clarinets without bothering whether the player--to whom he left a
freedom of choice and the work of transposition--would use his
instrument in C, B, or A. This method was not peculiar to Gluck. Other
composers used it as well, and traces of it are found even in Auber's
works.

After Damcke's death Mlle. Pelletan got me to help her in this work. I
wanted to change the method, but the edition would have lost its unity
and she would not consent. It was time that Damcke's collaboration
ended. He belonged to the tribe of German professors who have since
become legion. Due to their baneful influence, in a short time, when the
old editions have disappeared, the works of Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven, even of Chopin, will be all but unrecognizable. The works of
Sebastian Bach and Handel will be the only ones in existence in their
pristine purity of form, thanks to the admirable editions of the _Bach
und Haendel Gesselschaft_. When Mlle. Pelletan brought me into the work,
the two _Iphigenie_ had been published; _Alceste_ was about to be, and
_Armide_ was ready. In _Armide_ Damcke had been entirely carried away by
his zeal for "improvements"--a zeal that ca